vaspider:

vaspider:

secret-knight:

areasontobreathe:

sari-y-fawr:

So very true

Kids that young are essentially gender neutral, and are still being taught ‘gender norms’ by adults who should know better. 

I have the world’s most precious nephew.  When he was 3, he asked his mom and grandma if he could be a girl. Now, my family is smart.  Both his mom and his grandma asked “why?”  He said it was so he could have long hair. 

His mom showed him photos of famous musicians with long hair, along with Johnny Depp.  His grandma showed him photos of Brad Pitt, Troy Polamalu, and Jared Leto with long hair.  Then they told him “Boys can have long hair, see?”  He said “oh” and went on about his life being a boy.

When he was 4, this same nephew decided again that he wanted to be a girl. This time, the reason was so he could wear skirts and paint his nails.  Same reaction: his mom and grandma showed him photos of men in kilts, and men with painted nails, and said “boys can do that, too.”  He said “oh”, and decided he was okay being a boy. 

At the root of it, he didn’t really want to be a girl. He just wanted to do the same things he saw his mama doing. When he understood he didn’t have to be a girl to do those things, he shrugged it off and was cool with being a boy.

Now, if he ever adamantly decides that he is a girl, not that he wants to be a girl, myself, his mom, and his grandma will be okay with that. We just want to make sure he actually is transgender instead of deciding “oh he wants to do these things, so he is a girl.” We are extremely firm believers in making educated decisions. 

I feel that a transgender four year old is more like a cat who is vegan because the cat’s owner’s misunderstood the cat eating grass to mean it is vegan.

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆

This is grossly misunderstanding how transgender children behave. There are kids who are extremely adamant from a very young age that they are transgender. Kids who experience traumatic dysphoria from a very young age. Kids who, if they were pushed to ‘just wait and see’, would be actively traumatized by that. 

Taking the experience of a kid who is not trans and using that as a way to delegitmize the existence of and experience of transgender people is disgusting, and it’s no less disgusting when you do it to a small child than when you do it to an adult.

The diagnostic criteria for transgender children – the thing that @mistresskabooms‘ doctor told me when we were getting her set up for HRT – is “consistent, insistent and persistent.” The child above does not meet that criteria. A child who is four and meets that criteria absolutely is transgender, not the puppet of their parents, and is a child who should be supported in whatever way is appropriate for that child, as determined by that child’s parents and medical team. (And it isn’t just one doctor that you see – MK’s medical and support team consists of more than five medical professionals as well as her parents. Yes, she is older than the kids being talked about, but guess what? It’s the same damn professionals who handle kids of this age, and the diagnostic process is the same (source: MK’s psychologist), so I can speak pretty educatedly to how that process works.)

The idea that the parents of transgender kids are fulfilling some sort of political agenda through their children as opposed to providing for the health of their children is likewise equally disgusting. Knock it the fuck off. I’m embarrassed that someone I used to follow reblogged this post unironically. And tagged it “important”. It’s only important to realize how terrible this post is.

The experience of being a parent to a transgender child is the experience of protecting your kid from people who want to undercut them at every turn, want to tell them – regardless of age – that they’re not old enough to understand, that they should wait, that they can’t possibly make that determination. It does not matter where the people who think they know better than a child, that child’s parents and their medical team artificially decide to make that cutoff, there will people who want to say “oh, you’re too young.” That doesn’t come from genuine concern; it’s transphobic, and it manifests regardless of the child’s age. There will always be a reason why transphobes think a person shouldn’t transition.

(Case in point: my parents, who were convinced that MK needed to wait to start HRT until she was an adult, at minimum. Fortunately, I listened to MK, and to her doctors, and didn’t make her wait, and she’s happier and healthier for it.)

Anyone who takes this point of view should be embarrassed that they ever did, and I can only hope that they’ll research enough to be thoroughly embarrassed. Transgender kids have enough to deal with without concern trolls second-guessing their parents and medical teams.

#fucking thank you
#but also i would like to add that even if a child doesnt adamantly and consistently insist that theyre trans
#doesnt mean theyre not
#i knew from a v young age what i could and could not talk to my parents abt
#some of it came from experience where id try to talk to them abt a thing and receive a bad reaction
#and id file that away as the type of thing not to bring up again
#some of it was by listening to them talk
#in the v same instance that i learned abt transgender ppl i learned that my parents thought it was wrong
#it was an afab athlete who identified male and medically transitioned and he was on tv doing an interview abt
#his sports days from before he transitioned and i asked for clarification and my folks said he got a sex change
#and my little eyes got wide and i said ‘thats possible?’ bc the man on tv had a beard and a deep voice and looked like a man™
#and they proceeded to tell me how no matter how much they mutilate their bodies theyll never really be the gender they want
#and that its sad and we should pray for them
#and i thought ‘he looks like a real man to me. well i guess i cant talk to them abt this either’
#and when i was 12 crying myself to sleep @ night bc i wasnt a man i decided i could never transition bc it would kill my parents
#so sometimes kids know early on but cant say anything bc theyll get hit or punished
#tw: transphobia

That sounds terrible and I’m so sorry. 😦 Internet hugs if they are wanted. 

Insistent, consistent, persistent doesn’t have to be out loud. You knew inside your heart who you were, even if you couldn’t say it out loud. If you’d had a supportive environment, you could have said it. You were insistent in your own heart, you were consistent over time, you were persistent because you followed that train of thought in your own mind. Just because your parents forced you to stay closeted doesn’t mean you didn’t meet that criteria. By your own words, you seemed to do so. 

Again, I’m so sorry that your parents hurt you like that. I hope you have a more supportive environment now. 😦